Page 124 of the Pac-10’s 2009-10 basketball media guide contains a bio of the league’s new commissioner, Larry Scott, with an accompanying photograph in which he is balding. Like, say, George Costanza. It looks nothing like the Larry Scott of 2021.
When I saw Scott up close in a Zoom conference last fall, he had a healthy head of hair. Nothing wrong with that; the hair restoration people could use Scott for before-and-after commercials.
Why is that important?
The one thing that always struck me about Scott is that he seemed to put his totalitarian self first. Not the 12 schools in the conference, not the student-athletes, but Larry Scott. His balding-to-beautiful evolution was just part of 12 choppy years in which the league lost relevance and exposure and squandered tens of millions of dollars.
Former Washington State athletic director Bill Moos famously told The Oregonian newspaper that “Larry is a lavish guy; he likes his extravagance.”
The first time I walked into the glitzy new Pac-12 headquarters at 360 Third St. in downtown San Francisco, perhaps the most expensive piece of real estate west of New York City, I was appalled.
The structure, for which the Pac-12 pays $7 million per year for rent, reminded me of what the headquarters of the NFL or Amazon would look like, not a confederation of universities united to play a little football.
It was about that time that Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne left for a similar post at Alabama. I asked Byrne if he had a parting message for the commissioner.
“I would say that he needs to make sure to return the money to the league,” said Byrne.
Scott made his first visit to the UA campus during the 2009 football season, accompanied by an ever-present public relations figure. Scott toured each campus in the league that fall, and capped his day in Tucson by staging a media conference in the Arizona Stadium press box.
It was standard stuff, with one exception: Scott littered his Q&A session with a lot of Ivy League-type language. He talked about the league’s “footprint” and proudly displayed what he called a “shield” — a logo — that would be embroidered onto every Pac-12 uniform.
This was all shiny and new for a league that used to be operated out of an aging office building in Walnut Creek, California, a place where everybody knew your name.
When Scott left, I told one of those from the Pac-10 that it was impressive Scott would spend the weekend in Tucson, staying late, getting to know the city.
“He’s not staying,” the conference official said. “He’s on his way to the airport and to his private jet. He’ll be home before the game is over. He does it every week.”
That was the Larry Scott I saw for 12 years. Lavish Larry. Celebrity Larry. He staged Pac-12 football media days in Hollywood, an unnecessary, two-day, over-the-top exercise seen only by the relatively small Pac-12 Networks audience.
Meanwhile, the league’s reputation splintered after a series of football officiating fiascos and chronic too-late-at-night kickoffs alienated fans.
When Scott moved the Pac-12 basketball tournament to the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, he and his Bay Area cronies sat on the front row — floor seats that each could’ve been sold for $1,500 a day — rather than take a less conspicuous seat a few rows back.
Bad optics.
At halftime of the 2009 Arizona football game at Cal, I noticed Scott, his wife and two of their children in seats on the 50-yard-line underneath the Memorial Stadium press box. It was the first time I had seen Scott mixed in with the masses.
But at halftime, a Pac-12 official loaded up two sacks with press box food and hand-delivered them to Scott and his family. The man whose average yearly compensation is estimated at $5.3 million, the man who has overspent for such silly things as an annual “Pacific Rim Initiative” basketball game in China, wasn’t willing to buy a hot dog and a Coke.
He became a polarizing figure, the most unpopular man in league history, mostly because he couldn’t figure out how to make a deal with DirecTV. He had too much pride to know that was all he had to do to change his sinking image.
Once, at the Pac-12 basketball tournament, Channel 4’s David Kelly asked Scott if he was concerned that his “popularity ratings” were tanking.
“I’m not running for office,” Scott said, defiantly.
This is the man who fined Arizona basketball coach Sean Miller $25,000 for improper behavior during a tense loss in the Pac-12 championship game. Scott’s predecessor, Tom Hansen, had not fined a coach in his 30 years on the job, let alone $25,000.
What was this, the NBA? What happened to the college part of sports?
In September, Scott furloughed or laid off about half of the Pac-12 staff. It was during a period that Scott and his lieutenants split about $4 million in bonuses. Among those laid off was long-time communications director Dave Hirsch, a UA grad who had been the connection between the league and the West Coast sports media for 25 years.
Scott didn’t speak to Hirsch, or tell him he appreciated their years together. Scott had a human resources official deliver the news. By then it had become an every-man-for-himself scene at 360 Third St.
In the last few years, as all but two of the school presidents and chancellors who hired Scott away from the Women’s Tennis Association in 2009 were replaced, it became clear Scott didn’t have the votes or the leverage to get a new contract when it expired in 2022.
What does Scott leave behind? The expansion of 2012, in which he added Utah and Colorado, plus a nice logo and the maddening “Conference of Champions” babble.
Scott’s only 56. He’s got plenty of time to start over, but let’s hope he understands the celebrity business is for athletes, not administrators.
Rebuilding the league’s image and renegotiating media rights deals for the next decade will be led by a new commissioner. Maybe this time the league CEOs will wisely stay on-campus and hire ASU’s accomplished athletic director Ray Anderson, or someone who worked in or went to school in the Pac-12, someone who knows the turf like Texas AD Chris Del Conte, or Alabama’s Byrne.
This time, the league must hire someone who will serve the league, not expect to be served.
